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He lives is a town with 12K people. Gas. Tank a month maybe? Not many repairs driving 3K a year. Presents 1000.00 a year max, he only gave cash. Golf:
Chicken breast @ 1.99 lb @ 10lb= $20
You got me. That is some bare, bare bones living, but it sounds like it can be done.
Ran the numbers on this
[SIZE=13.63636302948px]You're not paying attention. My Mom fed a family of seven, and saved enough for them to retire comfortably. She taught us all how to plan, cook, and live within our means. [/SIZE][SIZE=13.63636302948px]The only caveat is where you draw the line on what is part of your grocery budget. Is it only food, or does that include dish soap, laundry detergent,, toilet paper?[/SIZE]
I hear ya, but its the definition of comfortable that obviously different for all of us. You pretty much couldn't go out to eat anywhere beyond maybe fast food once or twice a month or the budget would be shot. That isn't what I'd consider live comfortably. That's some really tight living.
Going to guess she gardened as well? We have a stock of veggies/potatoes for the winter from our garden in the summer. Cost is so minimal to plant. Not an option for everyone but it saves us around $1000 on food right now and in retirement I'm guessing that will increase substantially.
This depends on where you live. When we were in Kansas we'd plant seeds and almost magically get food. In eastern NC, we plant, take pretty good care of the garden and get a whole lot less, wouldn't be worth the work and cost from a purely economical perspective.
Where are you living that Pasta's @1.99 a box? I can't NOT buy it every week for a buck a box and various stores have it on sale from time to time for .79 a box....... Cereal the same.....2 for 3 and 2 for 5 Raisin Bran all day long at any number of stores.
I live in Canada with a 4-5 month growing season and get enough to fill my coffers for the winter and then some
Yeah, but we didn't have a lot of room in the yard. Mostly tomato plants and green beans while we were growing up. She also made meals using some of the lesser cuts of meat. Her spaghetti sauce included pigs feet and ears. Sounds gross, but adds a ton of flavor.
I call BS on the whole thing if you are talking Hungry-Man. If he was dabbling in Swanson or store brand, then I guess we'll let this slide.
Texas property taxes are high because they don't have state income taxes. Though doesn't mean much when your taxable income is way down in retirement.culdeus said:200k house here and you are looking at 6500 in property taxes.FatUncleJerryBuss said:NutterButter said:
Okay, I am making stuff up.
You need to think like a retiree not like yourself. He was lucky if he spent 200 a month on food for the house. What is a single retiree is going to live in a house that you pay 10K in taxes? He had two bedrooms, a living room, a bathroom and kitchen and a basement. Probably 2K at most. He was vet, so the medical did not come into play that much, once he hit his 5K max on a free UPMC plan that I can remember and he had cancer for the last 5 years or so. He also paid cash for new siding on the house before he died to make sure we got more money for it.
200K house and I pay 1,500 in property taxes.
10K in property taxes is moronic for a retiree.
Threshold for 10000 in property taxes in texas is roughly $350-365k depending on the city and county tax rates.
I also seriously question being able to afford food for a month for $200. I'd like to audit that.
Yup. My parents are taking a fire fighter pension, 2 social security checks and a not bigger than a breadbasket savings/investment account as far as it can go. A glorified double wide on a lake in NH in the summer, a 2 bedroom condo 2 mi from the beach in fla in the winter and 45-60 days on a cruise ship per year. Frugal folks other than the cruise fares. They even managed to retire early (54ish).
Even another consideration is the time on your hands. I know I spend most of my discretionary income on the weekends, and especially on vacation. I'm guessing those first couple of years in retirement are tough just for the fact that you have to find things to do that don't cost money. I have a house on a lake in Michigan, but that won't mean I won't to go to the bait shop and buy $100 of the best lures.
Oh, hell no.Gawain said:
Is the NH a trailer park or property with a trailer on it? If the latter, did they buy the prop with the trailer already on it from someone or buy the land and go through the process of getting it cleared and having the trailer moved in and hooked up? I find the arraignment your folks have very appealing.
This is true. There can be another side too though. A lot of people spend money on just working. Families buy multiple cars or commute to jobs. They eat out more. Suits aren't generally cheap either. At least where I work, I often get the impression people spend way too much of their income on expenses that are related to their jobs.
No, you have until 4/15/15 to make a non deductible traditional contribution for tax year 2014 and convert it to a Roth. There is really no deadline on the conversion, only the initial IRA contribution.
Including the FICA/Medicare contribution. And the loss of all the job related expenses Slapdash talked about can be a very large sum of money for some people. Many folks don't realize how much until they stop working.
Same token, most people don't realize how much time they have to fill when retired. Its fine when the weather is nice, but in the middle of the summer and middle of winter, you're inside all the time and you need something to do. I'm personally wonder what I'd do all day, day after day, in the winter when I'm 70.
What's your budget for pasta salad in 2035?Dentist said:James Daulton said:KCitons said:
People ask me this all the time.
So middle of the winter, what do you do day after day? Say hypothetically, there's 16 waking hours in the day. I know you can say read and watch tv, but that's a lot of reading and watching tv if that fills a large part of your day.
By the time I'm 70 I'm gonna assume I'll be watching live stream porn in 3d with some sort of robotic bj machine while on a viagra4.0 drip. What should I budget for that?
They bought the property about 25 years ago in a "trailer community". We started with a pop up for 2-3 years and then they purchased a double wide. My dad and I cleared out the property and the trailer company set it up. Now the community has running water, electricity, cable and they had a propane tank set up with a heating stove.
But if you love those type of things, it works.
Yeah it does. I shouldn't have even brought this up as its so subjective. There are probably people that could sit in a chair all day and stare at a wall which wouldn't cost a thing. There's also people that could work until they're 70 b/c in their mind if all they're doing is reading and watching tv all day, they might as well go to work and get paid as there's plenty of time to do that at night and on the weekend.
Exactly. Everyone needs to judge their own needs.
